Background, Scope and Objectives of the Workshop
SWINTH-2024 is meant to create an opportunity for scientists and technologists to discuss recent achievements and future needs in the development and application of advanced measurement instrumentation and techniques for thermal-hydraulics and severe accident research, and for accident management to provide data related to progression of an accident including long-term management of an accident. The scope of the workshop includes the following topics and aspects:
- experimental studies and instrumentation for water-cooled nuclear reactor accident phenomena: defense-in-depth level one through four;
- specific instrumentation for reactor circuit and containment used for normal operation, accidental sequences and SA management;
- experimental studies with instrumentation for advanced and innovative reactors (SMR, GEN-IV) including those beyond water-cooled reactor designs;
- scale and complexity of experiments and phenomena: from basic through separate and integral effect tests to investigate any phenomena of postulated accidents;
- purpose of the experiments: understanding of phenomena and processes for an accident and its analysis; support to model development, code validation, safety assessment and safety demonstration;
- innovations in the measurement of local and/or space-averaged instantaneous and/or time averaged quantities of single-phase and/or multi-phase/multi-component flows with sufficiently fine resolution and uncertainty quantification;
- use of simulant fluids with well-established scaling laws;
- applicability of experiments and instrumentation to validation and development of different types of computer code (i.e., system TH, sub-channel analysis, CFD, containment TH, and SA);
- gaps between current model/code validation needs and existing technology; definition of requirements for new experiments and instrumentation in terms of “quality” of data;
- measurement uncertainty evaluation depending on type of instruments and measurement method with possible influences of TH and/or SA phenomena to simulate;
- use of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) methods for data analyses;
- issues related to the utilization, handling and preservation of experimental data;
- specifically concerning instruments for SA-related experiments: major challenges and solutions, improvements and advancements, being proposed, under development and/or already in use, including those in the light of lessons-learned from Fukushima-Daiichi accident and it’s recovery/decommissioning.
The workshop is aimed at enhancing scientific and technological exchanges through keynote lectures, technically sound presentations, fostering of discussions during technical sessions and foreseen panels and, no less important, attendees networking. More specifically, the workshop will:
- provide input to the improvement of instrumentation and measurement techniques;
- support the establishment of a shared knowledge and expertise basis;
- produce reference material for a NEA summary report, as a result of open discussions and synthesis of technical sessions by organizers and chairpersons;
- allow selection of papers to be recommended for publication on relevant journals.
